Pages

Search for Web 2.0 Tools

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Add a little humor to your class website with a Voki.

A few years back I ran into the Voki website and thought it was a funny idea to create a Voki and add it to my website. My students thought I was crazy, our internet speed was atrocious and I was still using a Windows 98 machine and my student machines didn't have the latest browsers so using Voki just wasn't worth it. Now that our school is doing really well with technology integration and many of our teachers are creating class website, I though I would blog a little about Voki. Voki is an avatar creator. I literally only takes seconds to create an avatar that can speak to your students from within your website. Below is an example of one. This is one that literally took seconds to do. I am on Christmas vacation so I didn't even have anything clever to say, but if you are interested in creating a Voki for your school website or blog, below is a tutorial on how simple it is.

1. After you create an account and log in to it at http://www.voki.com , just click the "Create a New Voki" button.

2. Next pick a character and start customizing it. You can add hair, change the mouth style, change its clothing and "bling" it out.

3. You will notice a di once in awhile. This will just quickly randomize the look of your avatar for you. You can also manually change the features of the avatar's body as well as its color.

4. Now give it a voice. The phone icon will let you call in and give it your own voice if you don't happen to have a microphone. I prefer the mic option. You can also have a computerized voice by just clicking the "key" button and typing in your message. Finally you can also add a sound file from your computer to your avatar.

5. Now choose a different background for your scene to take place in.

6. Make sure you click the "Done" button each time you are finished manipulating part of your scene. The "Players" button lets you change the style of the Voki's media player.

7. Once you are done playing with and creating your Voki, just click the "Publish" button.

8. Give you Voki file a name and click "Save."

9. Click the "Add to your site" tab and then copy the "Embed Code:". Now just take that embed code and paste it into your "HTML" section of your website or blog.

Don't be afraid to let your kids try it out as well. I think they would really like to create a Voki.

Worked with Snowflake Unified School District for the last 17 year. Taught Math, Earth Science, Spanish. Currently working on getting my Google Educator Certification. Currently learning to program Smartphones using the App Inventor 2.